"The only reason to NEED more power is bad speaker design - Higher efficient speakers ALWAYS sound more dynamic more lifelike "

This is pure nonsense. The truth is that on an absolute basis, ALL loudspeaker systems are very inefficient at converting electrical power into acoustical power. One watt of acoustical power is an enormous amount. The most efficient loudspeakers ever made are only a few percent efficient as energy converters. The sacrifice in efficiency to gain greater control, lower distortion, wider flatter frequency response is a well known and accepted engineering principle. Of course you have to know what you are doing or it can be a disaster. Low efficiency in itself does not mean improvement, it is a consequence of certain techniques such as negative feedback and damping.

The Teledyne AR9 was the last and ultimate experession of Edgar Vilcher's concept for his original acoustic suspension design. It was relatively efficient for a speaker of its type. Acoustic Research strived for accuracy by making extensive measurements and proving their worth in live versus recorded demonstrations allowing listeners to judge accuracy for themselves. They were amazingly successful with many different types of instruments from guitars, nickelodeons (both of which I attended) pipe organs, string quartets, and among the last an AR Ten Pi played against Buddy Rich the world famous drummer. It's unfortunate that Arsenal's web site is down for the last few weeks because there is an extensive thread now archived about this particular demo by the people who were actually involved in setting it up and conducting it. HOW MANY LIVE VERSUS RECORDED DEMOS HAS Audio Note CONDUCTED???? I'd venture to say the answer would be about.......NONE! Like most manufacturers, they don't dare. The appeal of their products is based on what they think their customers will like, not on what is accurate. In this respect, they are no different from most of their competitors.